[5-19] "Naming Conventions"

One aspect of photography I came late was the (re)naming of images.

Images are just files, starting as jpg or raw (.nef).

Out the camera they come out pre-named. On my D750:

“GDS_6711.NEF”

I can specify any three letters (I just changed them to MWD, no idea what GDS meant).

6711 is an index; if I delete images (e.g. if I delete 6712), the next image will still be 6713. The index resets to 0000 after 9999.

💡 Like a car every camera has milage: the number of shutter actuations (clicks). This is not revealed in the file name. You always want to check the actual number when buying a used camera, because shutters typically fail after 150-250k clicks.

I used to rename images differently each time. I developed protocol for renaming images.

For portraits, I include the first name and last initial.

"Samuel K."

Preceding the name, I create a docket number. 4400 started 2020, 4500 for 2021. New shoots are start at 4501... Modeling is 5200, personal at 7000.

"[4502] Samuel K."

Great, I can now specify the index within this album. Lightroom automates this as follows:

"[4052] Samuel K. (1 of 109)"

On export:

"[4052] Samuel K. (1 of 109) (4k)" => 4,000 pixels on the long edge

"[4052] Samuel K. (1 of 109) (4k) (edit-01)" => completion of first edit

“[4052] Samuel K. (1 of 109) (1200px)” downsized to load faster on a website

With smart naming it is possible to see where an image belongs within a library of thousands or millions of images.